Danger Zone – Kenny Loggins

April’s Theme: Music from the Movies

“Jingoism is extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy. In practice, it is a country’s advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests. Colloquially, it refers to excessive bias in judging one’s own country as superior to others – an extreme type of nationalism.”

That’s the definition as provided by Wikipedia for Jingoism. What does that have to do with anything? Well, if not for his disliking the level of said jingoism expressed in the movie Top Gun, it would’ve been Bryan Adams singing this tune instead of Loggins. Actually, he wasn’t even the second choice. Toto was next in line, but they had to pass due to legal matters. The song is the second single from the movie’s soundtrack. It made it to #2 on the charts and was only one of several hit songs Loggins would have associated with a hit film.

He’s a Pirate – Klaus Badelt & Hans Zimmer

April’s Theme: Music from the Movies

I can’t quite seem to find a direct answer about giving credit for this song to Badelt or Zimmer. Alan Silvestri was originally approached to do the film’s score, but differences between Silvestri and the film’s producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, resulted in Silvestri leaving the project. Zimmer was next in line but was working on a project, The Last Samurai, with a contract that stated he was to take on no other jobs. The referral was made by Zimmer to Badelt.

Apparently, before all was said and done, the two collaborated on the work together. This song particularly was originally written by Zimmer, but his version was different from the final one released on the official soundtrack. Badelt made some changes, apparently. There is a pretty good quality live performance of the song that is a bit longer than the recorded version.  I’ve posted it below.

Shredder’s Suite – John Du Prez

April’s Theme: Music from the Movies

 

This piece was used throughout the film as sort of the “evil/villain” theme music, but the opening of the song with its pseudo-electronic taiko drums was perfect for the introduction of Shredder. This piece and “Turtle Rhapsody” are my favorite pieces from the soundtrack. There are several hip-hop and New Jack Swing titles on the soundtrack as well.

This piece was written by composer John Du Prez. He has worked on such films as A Fish Called Wanda and Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. The film didn’t spend a lot of money on the soundtrack since it was an independent film. You can hear a lot of the same music cued in different sections of the movie, and there’s a lot of the movie that doesn’t have any music in it at all. Despite a low budget, it was the highest-grossing independent film of all time at one point and held the title for several years. Below, you can see the introduction of Shredder in the movie and hear the score above in the background. The speech he gives and part of the suite played over the visuals of the original movie trailer, too.

Cruisin’ – Huey Lewis & Gwenyth Paltrow

April’s Theme: Music from the Movies

This was originally a Smokey Robinson song. He wrote, produced, and recorded the song, and his version went to #4 on the Hot 100 and Soul charts. Robinson released it on his ninth, rather cleverly titled studio album: Where There’s Smoke…

The version above is from the movie Duets that starred Lewis and Paltrow. Those two actors, along with Paul Giamatti and Maria Bello, recorded all their own vocals for the soundtrack. More recently, Paltrow has had singing roles in the TV show “Glee” and the movie Country Strong. Lewis has kept his acting to a minimum, mostly making cameos in TV shows (i.e., “Hot in Cleveland,” “Just Shoot Me”) and movies.

My favorite cameo Lewis does is in Back to the Future. Most people know he recorded a couple of songs for the soundtrack to the film, most notably “Power of Love,” but he also has a bit in the movie, too. When Marty’s band is auditioning for the school dance, one of the judges stands up and, with a bullhorn, tells the band, The Pinheads, they’re just “too darn loud.” Yup, that’s Huey.

Blue Shadows – Steve Martin, Chevy Chase & Martin Short

April’s Theme: Music from the Movies

This is actually performed by the three actors. How much studio work and auto-tuning went on behind the scenes, we’ll never know, but I’m guessing it’s not a lot for at least a couple of them. I am aware that Martin & Short both have some training in music, but I’m not sure about Chase. Regardless, they all sound very good here.

It’s definitely a corny song, but I like the easy western swing feel of it with the orchestra backing. This song, along with two others, “The Ballad of the Three Amigos” and “My Little Buttercup” (I’ve included that video below because I like it as well), were written by Randy Newman. The rest of the film’s score was covered by Elmer Bernstein.

Weather Man – Delbert McClinton

April’s Theme: Music from the Movies

McClinton recorded this song specifically for the opening sequence of the film Groundhog Day. The song was written by George Fenton, a composer that has worked on other films such as You’ve Got Mail and Gandhi, and Harold Ramis, the director of the film, better known to many as Egon Spangler from Ghostbusters. I always think it’s cool to see people in the movie business get into other aspects of filmmaking besides their first job. I never would’ve guessed this song was written by the guy that played Ben’s (Seth Rogen) dad in Knocked Up.

Delbert McClinton has had a successful career in the blues format. He’s not only a singer-songwriter, but he also plays guitar, harmonica, and piano. He often does work with one of my favorite artists, Lee Roy Parnell, and that’s how I first became familiar with his work outside of this song that I knew only from the film’s soundtrack. He was inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, along with Parnell and several others, in 2011.

Duel of the Fates – John Williams

April’s Theme: Music from the Movies

Some of my favorite pieces are built on the simplest concepts. The main pattern you hear through the background of this song (1& 2e& 3& 4e&) is what really makes it, and it’s such a simple pattern. The way the longer, bigger notes flow over the top of that staccato pattern seal the deal. I’ve written on Williams twice before, covering the themes for Jurassic Park and Superman, both amazing pieces by Williams.

The lyrics you’re hearing in “Duel” are being sung by the London Voices (the London Symphony Orchestra provides the music) and are being sung in Sanskrit. The words were taken from an archaic Welsh poem with a title that translates as Battle of the Trees. The piece appears throughout the Star Wars prequel trilogy several times, but it’s most noted appearance is during Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightsaber duel with Darth Maul during the finale of Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Outside of the SW universe, the song was used as the theme for the 2003 broadcast of the DCI World Championship on PBS. This was only one of several times it’s heard outside SW use.

02/03/18 Update: The video below recently showed up on my facebook newsfeed. It was posted by my high school band director. Oddly enough, when I was instructing the drum line for him after graduating, one of the shows we performed included this song. Few things make me laugh out loud, but this lyric video did.

Main Theme from Braveheart – James Horner

April’s Theme: Music from the Movies

 

I wasn’t very familiar with Horner’s work until looking up some info for this post. He has a rather large body of work actually. He has written pieces for lots of big films…Apollo 13, An American Tail, Field of Dreams, The Karate Kid, Sneakers, and Aliens just to name a few. His awards include Golden Globes, Grammy Awards, and Oscars. His biggest success in music scoring though is Titanic, which is the best selling orchestral film score of all time. The partnership he has with the film’s director, James Cameron, led him to be the composer for the Avatar soundtrack as well.

Just to give you an idea of his accomplishment with the Titanic soundtrack, here are some numbers. The album, while riding on the ginormous success that was the Titanic movie, sold over 30 million copies and topped the charts in over two dozen territories across the globe. Originally, Cameron wanted Enya to do the soundtrack. He even had an early cut of the film that included her music as background score. She declined the offer, and Cameron contacted Horner.

If you listen to the track above, you can hear a lot of similarities between this and some of the main themes from Titanic. I noticed them before I realized they had the same composer. This isn’t uncommon, though. It’s usually pretty simple to pick out a John Williams, Hans Zimmer, or Danny Elfman soundtrack. It’s typically the mark of a good composer to know their strengths and have preferences for a particular sound.

Jurassic Park Theme – John Williams

April’s Theme: Music from the Movies

This is only one of probably several Williams pieces that will be included this month. He works on lots and lots of movie scores, mainly cause he’s awesome at it. He is by far my favorite movie music composer, and this is one of his greatest pieces.

This theme totally encompasses the feel of the movie. It makes you feel the wonder and awe of seeing real, living dinosaurs for the very first time. The scene in the movie where Dr. Grant sees his first dinosaur and then turns around to see an entire group of them moving across the landscape is where we first really hear this theme hit hard. It’s the perfect timing for it, too. You can hear the theme start to build right from the moment the Jeep pulls to a stop, but it’s that final moment or two of the clip below that really gives you chills.

Terminator Salvation Theme – Danny Elfman

April’s Theme: Music from the Movies

 

As far as I can tell, this is a variation on the original Terminator film’s theme. The original theme was more majestic and somewhat laid back and more spacious. It wasn’t until the sequel that the original composer, Brad Friedel, added the infamous percussion beat that has really become the mark of the score (1-e-uh e-& if you count music). It has just the right sound for those cold, robotic eyes staring at the viewer, the ones you see on in the video here.

This changed the way I view Elfman slightly. All of the soundtracks I’m familiar with him working on sound very similar. This one sounds very different from his usual work, though. I didn’t even know it was Elfman until after looking it up. It’s a good way to start my Movie Music Month.